


Switching places

by maliksvodka



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, would make you wanna cuddle your pillow, would make you wanna punch a wall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-14
Updated: 2015-07-14
Packaged: 2018-04-09 05:58:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4336505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maliksvodka/pseuds/maliksvodka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late night music really bothers Liam, especially when it's coming from his neighbour, Zayn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Switching places

**Author's Note:**

> this is nothing too serious, just felt like putting out this fluffy ass story with a hint or maybe more than hint of heat because my heart swells for ziam.

Liam knocks over an unlabeled empty soup can as he attempts to grab whatever he has left in his pantry cabinet. It’s been days since he left his apartment (not like he was interested in leaving it either,) but there was nothing in his fridge and he was starving. On normal days, he’d have takeovers or popped in the microwave food, but today, he had nothing and he was seconds away from stabbing his eyes. With a phone between his shoulder and cheek, he answers, “Please tell me you’re on your way here.”

“Yes but—can you please stop? I am on the phone with Li—,” and Liam hears a loud thud, probably the phone on the ground and muffled noises. Groaning, he drops the call and continues to search through, hoping to find something new because he was just not willing to go to the store. It was their off week—his and Harry’s, and he vowed not to do anything that was out of his home premises, because he was tired. He was tired of everything; he just wanted a break from the real world and from seeing people and from writing. Pulling on a shirt and sweat pants he wore three days in a row without changing, he grabs his keys and wallet before making his way out and down the stairs. At the entrance, he sees boxes propped with a scribbled name taped on them. He couldn’t make out the letters, they were too messy but it started with a Z. It made him wonder how the new neighbor looked like, but he didn’t care at this moment because his stomach was rumbling and he was about to lose balance if he was to stay this way for the next hour.

\--

“You have to come,” Harry leans against the doorframe to Liam’s bedroom. Liam’s place wasn’t big. From the entrance, you’d see his sitting room, which was majorly just a couch with a television screen across and a console table; let’s not forget the bookcase upheld against the wall. Right behind it was the kitchen. It wasn’t spacious, but it was enough for him, at least for now. The warm colors touched with the brick walls décor, Liam had to have vinyl records hung on the wall. 

Liam sifts through the pages of a book he had only a few days to read through. “I don’t think so.”

“But you love that bar!”

“Only when I’m drunk.”

“And drunk you shall be, Liam.” Harry flops over to the empty side on Liam’s bed and nudges him. “You’ve been in here for too long.” Liam got a long lecture from his family back home about drinking and late night driving. He forgot to mention how Harry, his long-term fellow friend, was fond of doing just that (he never really drove; they’d usually end up in a cab, drunk talking the ears of the cab driver.)

“No.” The next thing he knew, he was dressed up and in the backseat of Niall’s cruiser, thumping his foot to the song playing on the radio. It took a lot of convincing but Harry always had a way with his things. Every Friday night, it became a thing to hit the pub (a sort of tradition they got accustomed to.) Occasionally, co-workers would join, but they preferred to keep their circle small even though Niall was always first to jump at the opportunity of hanging out with more people. He and Harry are having a conversation when Liam’s mind drifts into the blurry visions of the city lights, shops, and diners they drive by. He wasn’t one to think much about little things since his life consisted of thinking of the big things. Like graduating from college, getting a job and settling down at some point. His heart beats faster at the thought of settling down, like, literally settling down with kids and a wife or—, “seems to have more crowd than usual.” Liam sits up and looks at the amount of people walking in and out of the place with a glowing signal of DrinkUp! at the top. 

When the car is parked and no one but Harry grips his arm tightly, he is pushed in and can already feel the buzz of alcohol in his body. The bar smells of solid liquor and sweat with a mix of music and loud chatters blaring in the air. 

“Over there!” Niall signals to the booth on the other side because it was more private and a stumbling drunk harry wouldn’t have to complain throughout. Whenever Harry got totally smashed, he could be a delight; other times, he’d be that annoying headache you can’t get rid off during a hangover.

A part of Liam feels like drinking to the point of forgetting his name; the sane part of him, which is almost the entire percentage of him, has him indisposed for drinking alcohol, bugging him not to drink because falling a million times while going up one flight of stairs is no pleasure; not in his case, anyway. 

“I’ll go get the drinks,” when everyone is settled, the blonde with an infectious grin gets up, “what d’ya want?”

“Anything strong,” Harry pats Liam’s back, “anything.”

\--

“Do you know the difference between snowmen and snowladies?” Liam is laying with his back against the bottom of the seats, not figuring out if it was 2 am or 2 pm; the sky made him a bit confused and now that he was apparently on his way back home, it made him feel like throwing up. He continues, “Snow balls.”

Harry is the only one laughing out loud, hitting the dashboard of the car with his fist, almost dropping forwards until Niall pushes him back with one hand while the other hand holds the steering wheel. Niall laughs too, but he isn’t buzzed as the other two because it was his turn this time to stay a bit sober while they drank off their ass. 

Liam seriously gets confused and asks questions about the time even though he clearly sees the clock and doesn’t really understand why the forty-four doesn’t register in his head. When the car stops, Liam totally feels it because he springs up and holds tightly to the driver’s seat, laughing, laughing and laughing. Everything seems funny; his hands seem funny, how they wrap around Niall’s seem funny, how he looks at the stranger standing right alone at the curb smoking a cigarette seems funny. Even the way the lonesome guy looks in his direction for a second feels funny and feels like something else; something he can’t put a finger on because guess what? His hands feel funny and automatically so do his fingers. He is so out of his mind, he can’t walk up the stairs straight. He even forgets Harry has accompanied him up as well. Niall has no choice, too. He is tired from having them sling around his shoulders. He crashes on the couch while Harry and Liam take the bed. Liam drapes his arm over Harry’s and surely knows that tomorrow would be terrible. And that is not funny.

\--

His head hurts so badly, he swears he is about to throw the television out of the window if someone who happens to be watching does not tune down the volume. Rubbing his temple and grumbling a low, “fuck,” he knows it is bad. Too bad for his liking. He should have listened to his mother. He should’ve listened to his sister scold him the first time he got drunk at fifteen and had to lie straight through his teeth that it was eight p.m. when for the matter, it was three a.m. and the neighborhood was so dark, he thought he was in outer space. He thought about those times he should’ve listened, he thought about the times he should have just told Harry a no and meant it. It gets worse when he begins thinking more about things. His chest feels heavy and he realizes Harry is still asleep, the curls resting over his sight and his cheek smashed against Liam’s shoulder. He grumbles even more words but whatever he says is so out of him, he just gets out of bed and gets into the bathroom. The cold water running down his body does nothing but make the headache seem like a world war going on in his head. And the television is still not tuned down.

When Liam saunters out to the sitting room, he spots Niall eating cereal out of a bowl while watching football. It takes a moment for Niall to dart his eyes between the screen and Liam’s squeezed up face. He says something with his mouth full but Liam takes it as an, “afternoon bro,” and takes himself to the kitchen three steps away and manages to make scrambled eggs. That’s the least he could do before tuning down the television and not having Niall comment because Niall knew Liam was not in the mood. Liam never took things out of proportion, he just didn’t like feeling this shitty, didn’t like feeling out of place. Harry stumbles out with a loud yawn and stretch of his back.

“Last night was fun.”

“If only I could remember it,” Liam mutters from where he stands behind the island of the kitchen, shoving a mouthful of eggs.

“I got some chick’s number,” Niall begins to flip the channels, “she’s the red head.”

“I thought you were into brunettes,” Harry who sits by Niall, takes the bowl and receives a scowl.

Liam snorts.

“Not after Lenny.”

“What about blondes?” Harry continues.

“Not after that library chick told him she couldn’t do it anymore because books seemed more interesting,” Liam butts in and that’s how the hour passes, he and Harry making fun of Niall’s relationships and how he always says he has a type and ends up having no type because life is short and he wants to live it by learning. Then, Liam is alone. Alone on his couch, finally having the time of the day to calm down his senses and not think of the fact work began next week and he, along with the rest, would have to fall back into the routine. He liked routines, anyway. He liked knowing what was to happen, how things would flow, how organized he’d feel. He liked sticking to the normal, not spontaneous moments. From outside of his door, he hears the one across shot closed. Maybe it was the new neighbor. No one has been in the apartment across his door ever since he moved in; considering he moved in two years ago.

Something inside him totally flips because he finds himself making pie, can you believe it? An apple pie his mother usually made and offered him to take whenever they had new neighbors and it sort of got into him. Making apple pie, plastering that wide smile and showing off your heart that apparently took a free stay on your sleeves. He can’t even believe it when he steps out or when he knocks on the door. He doesn’t believe it, not when he coughs under his breath when a guy opens the door, half way looking back and gesturing and half way looking at Liam, because the moment Liam sees him, he almost has his pie falling. But Liam grabs harder to his fucking apple pie and watches this guy say something about how shitty the movie ended. Liam knows this dude would probably smash the pie into Liam’s face because when he turns and finally focuses on Liam, he looks surprised. Or maybe just appalled.

“Yes?”

He forgets how to speak—Liam. He forgets everything but remembers the moment in sixth grade when he had to ask this girl out. She laughed, though, she really did because then he remembered asking her another twenty one times. That didn’t go so well. “I—uh, I’m your neighbor.” 

“And?” The music is a bit loud in the background for Liam to even reply without having to shout back.

“This is a welcoming pie,” Liam props up his dish.

The guy opposite just looks down and snorts. He leans against the door and crosses his arms across his chest, debating whether to take this or not. He gives Liam a full show of his jaw; Liam thought he could slice his finger if he wasn’t careful when touching it. He just had the right amount of stubble sprinkled around his cheeks and jaw; everything was so right. From the long eye lashes batting on his cheeks, to the way ink sprawls right from underneath his jumper. He looks fascinating with the piercing hazel eyes and ink jet-black hair.

“Who’s here?” A girl appears behind this guy, putting her hand on his shoulder before making an eye contact with Liam. She had the widest smile on and the curliest hair, it made her look like a doll you wish you had when you were younger. Though she is shorter than the guy, she tiptoes and goggles at the pie.

“Apparently our neighbor,” he grunts and has even a tougher face than before. 

“This is so nice of you,” she takes the pie, “I am Nayeli.”

Liam shakes her hand, still wondering why the other one didn’t speak even if Nayeli tried doing the small talk. When Liam is about to ask the guy for his name, the door is shut straight at his face and he stands there, dumbfounded.


End file.
